In CHEM 146, a capstone course for chemistry majors at San José State University, I run a course-based undergraduate research experience (CURE) developed in collaboration with many members of the IONiC VIPEr community. This CURE starts with every student in the lab developing and presenting their proposed project to the class (described in a separate LO) and then "fund" (pursue) the top rated proposals in groups of 2 or 3 students.
In CHEM 146, a capstone course for chemistry majors at San José State University, I run a course-based undergraduate research experience (CURE) developed in collaboration with many members of the IONiC VIPEr community. This CURE starts with every student in the lab developing and presenting their proposed project to the class. Each proposal is addressing the same overarching scientific aim: to study catalysts for catechol oxidation where at least one of the proposed catalysts has not been used for this reaction before.
Application of advanced instrumental and preparative techniques to the study of structure, reactivity, and spectroscopy of inorganic and organic substances including materials. This is a capstone course and includes a course-based undergraduate research experience (CURE) that runs throughout the semester.
In this lab we have two standard introduction labs (LUM and POR) and then a full CURE. This was the second time I ran this CURE (the first was Spring 2024).
The CURE is being published as a multi-institution ACS Symposium Series Chapter in 2026, and the materials from the CURE will be hosted in a collection on VIPEr.
Once the chapter is published, I will add the link to it in the description.
This literature discussion celebrates Dr. Geoffrey W. Coates for being the recipient of the ACS Award in Polymer Chemistry 2026 from the American Chemical Society.
This literature discussion LO was created for the ACS National Award Winners 2026 collection for Dr. Jonas C. Peters, the recipient of the ACS Award in Inorganic Chemistry. This LO is based on the article "Terminal Iron–Dinitrogen and Iron–Imide Complexes Supported by a Tris(phosphino)borane Ligand" published in Angewandte Chemie Int. Eng.
This activity allows students to manipulate highly symmetric objects and find the symmetry elements that are present.
This literature discussion comes from a paper in the Turkish Journal of Chemistry (1999, 23, 9-14) https://journals.tubitak.gov.tr/chem/vol23/iss1/2/. In this paper, the authors report spectroscopic data for nine compounds, [M(CO)4(PP)] (M = Cr, Mo or W; PP = dppm, dppe, dppp). This is a very fundamental paper and as such, students are not expected to have had any significant coursework in inorganic chemistry.
This paper (J. Organomet. Chem. 2022, 965-966, 122317) describes the synthesis and reactivity of four-coordinate iridium compound with a tridentate ligand. This ligand is referred to in the paper as a pincer ligand which are a general class of tridentate ligands that coordinate in a mer- arrangement.
This is a really interesting paper in J. Am. Chem. Soc. (2025, 147, 34641-34646) involving a complex salt in which both the cation and anion are metallocenes. While a majority of the paper is focused on the characterization of two new compounds, it presents some excellent opportunities to practice counting electrons, one of which was a challenge to this author.